Hunter Biden's Ukraine gig was corrupt, just not in the way Republican conspiracists claim it was

Yanukovych was removed from power by a popular revolt because he was massively corrupt and in Kremlin’s pocket. Don’t buy into the Russian lies about the Maidan revolution, please.

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To expand a little for those unfamiliar:

Jimmy Carter had a younger brother named Billy who was kind of a screw-up who tried to cash in on the family name in various ways. Most notably for the present discussion he was paid over $200,000 ($622,000 inflation adjusted) by the government of Libya, was investigated by FBI and was forced to register as a foreign agent.

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It is not corrupt just because you don’t like it or don’t think Hunter Biden has any qualifications.

Joe Biden isn’t involved. He can’t tell his adult son what to do. I mean he isn’t Donald Trump who picked out Don Jr’s wife for him.

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Biden is not my preferred candidate, but seriously are we gonna fall for Trump’s distraction play on this again?

Have the useful idiots learned nothing?

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Yeah, Joe’s sons are grown men. If anything, I suspect Joe might have seen Hunter’s involvement as even more reason to crack down. “Well, if that dumb kid of mine is involved, those people must be crooked. Better let those jerks know I don’t take kindly to this crap.”

I googled this. The most credible news outlet I can find reporting this story is the Daily Mail and they only report that Rudy Giuliani says Joe Biden was paid $900k. The next top hit is a site called ar15-dot-com, it doesn’t get better as I scroll down. So far that looks like a very good reason to think this didn’t happen.

Biden’s encouraging of the Ukraine to fire Shokin was supported by the international community, by a grass roots movement in Ukraine, and was done through proper government channels (i.e. it was done with advice from state department bureaucrats). It looks very much like Biden made the decision without regard to Hunter Biden’s business with Burisma.

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There’s a link in my post. I messed up the selection and the link is only on the period after the $900K

“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

You can edit the post to fix the link. I find the link unconvincing because I really have no way of evaluating the source and it’s from after Trump’s team started pressuring Ukrainians to smear Biden.

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99 percent of Americans receive an annual income that is less than $300,000.

Hunter Biden received $600,000 per year for a part-time non-executive directorship with a Ukrainian gas company.

His father was Vice-President of the United States at the time.

This kind of corruption is rife.

Even if he had some value other than his connection to Joe Biden – and he didn’t, because he had no background in the energy industry and no knowledge of Ukrainian regulatory requirements – this is influence-peddling and it perverts political processes to favour elites.

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So basically it was a bum deal for those buying into Hunter, since he has negative pull on his dad. “Oh, my son Hunter is on your board? You just got extra scrutiny, pal.”

In a way, Joe did good that way: showed that tying to bribe him through his kids is going to bite you in the ass.

Just a small point, but I’m pretty sure it’s MBNA not MNBA.

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One reporting simplification that makes things sound so much worse:

And then there’s Ukraine. In February 2014, Hunter Biden, less than a year after enlisting in the Navy, was discharged for testing positive for cocaine.

What’s left out is that this was the Navy Reserve he joined in his 40s – sounds so much more suspicious to imagine this consulting gig straight out of a cocaine-fueled youthful enlistment, but sounds about right when the full context is supplied.

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Needs more “Mom’s basement conspiracy web string.”

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Did they find that out from his tax returns?

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Honestly, I don’t think anyone’s going to care about Hunter Biden after they hear the names, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman! What great movie names!

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Assumed. The media loves the horse race. The horse race needs a favorite and an underdog, and a villain. Especially if that favorite can fail, falter, or pull a heel turn. If Ukraine wasn’t dominating the news right now they’d be ecstatic that one of the underdogs has caught him. And a lot of his dominance in the news despite that, is currently connected to Ukraine. And whether he’ll do the heel turn, is he corrupt? Could it be true? Will it impact is electability?

Almost every Democrat or Democrat adjacent person I know over the age of 50 is on Biden. As are a bunch of my peers in the 30ish block. And quite a lot of them like Biden a lot (if not like him as a nominee). But there is almost no discussion of his policies, positions, history. And very little actual enthusiasm about the guy. It seems 100% driven by fond Obama feels and the expectation that he he will play better to some one else. Often framed as everyone else being “too progressive” even conservatives and people more conservative than Biden.

He was never as dominating a front runner as the pundits said, he peaked at around half of where Clinton was polling before the first primaries. He’s here because of hand wringing, fear, and received wisdom from decades past. The idea that a thoroughly middle of the road candidate that can appeal to the right is the only safe past. That worked in the 80’s and 90’s. But it presumes that the generation that drove that is still representative of the entire nation. Its boomer shit.

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Igor Fruman? The Sausage King of Chicago?

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Well, it does look like they knew how the sausage got made.

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Instead, he’s HB; neither hard nor soft. His monogrammed pencils turn up all over the place.

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It’s almost as if the BB readers trended significantly to the left of the average Democrat, let alone the average American voter, and that BBers’ interests, expectations and demands weren’t representative at all… :wink:

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